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Monday, 22 June 2009

'People Are Reasonable—Even Jewel Thieves'

Photo: Boogie Woogie Flu

This is pretty cool. Ted at Boogie Woogie Flu found this old record at an antiques store in Phoenicia, New York, and posted some of the cuts as MP3's.

I've never heard Weegee speak before. "...One of those accents you don't hear so much in New York anymore: part Austro-Hungarian immigrant by way of the Lower East Side," Ted writes, "and part Elmer Fudd. Peter Sellers based his accent in Dr. Strangelove on Weegee's
voice after Weegee visited Kubrick's set one day."

Don't miss it.

And don't forget: "You can't be a Nice Nellie and do photography." —Weegee

UPDATE: Joe Riefer tells me that the Getty Museum had some
some audio clips of Weegee speaking in its 2006 exhibit. Unfortunately they're RealPlayer files, so I can't listen to them, but maybe you can.

Thanks to an exchange between Steve Gasbarre and Michael Gilday on
Photo.net, pointed out in the comments by yemado, I've learned that the
person behind this record was none other than Lou Stettner.
The record catalogue number is Candid CA1001, dated 1958, put out by
Candid Recordings, and there was a review of it in the June 22, 1958
issue of The New York Times.

Featured Comment by Rod Graham: "I guess like a lot of others, I've had a passing 'familiarity' with Weegee and his photojournalism. But this recording is beyond a famous photographer talking about photography: This is a man talking from his heart, plain and simple words, freely sharing his art and craft and views on a profession that obviously meant everything to him. You don't have to be interested in photography at all to be taken with this piece of oral history and the simple integrity of the telling."

Henry Kissinger, a junior Kennedy and Johnson administration era part-time consultant and academic was practically unknown outside of Washington DC policy wonk circles when the movie was made in 1963-1964. He became a celebrity only in Nixon's presidency.

I guess like a lot of others, I've had a passing "familiarity" with Weegee and his photojournalism. But this recording is beyond a famous photographer talking about photography: This is a man talking from his heart, plain and simple words, freely sharing his art and craft and views on a profession that obviously meant everything to him. You don't have to be interested in photography at all to be taken with this piece of oral history and the simple integrity of the telling.

Are you sure you meant "Galicia"? Being in the NW of Spain, Galicia's inhabitants speak Castilian (what most people call "Spanish") and Galician, a Romance dialect somewhere in between Castilian and Portuguese.

Wow! Straight from their own mouths. How fantastic to hear Arthur Fellig and Henri Cartier-Bresson speak about their work.

I was particularly interested to hear Cartier-Bresson say "You place yourself in time and space...pick your right spot...if the interplay of lines is correct, well, it is there; if it is not correct, it is not by cropping in the darkroom and making all sorts of tricks that you will improve it. If a picture is mediocre, it remains mediocre. The thing is done once for all."

Every time I see a reference to Weegee I think of my first full-time photography job. It was on the photo staff of the Portland Press Herald and Evening Express in Portland, Maine, in 1970. A lot of the city still looked like it was right out of the 1930s.

The oldest guys on the staff were close to retirement and they carried around 4x5 Speed Graphics or Mamiya twin-lens reflexes and shot with flash bulbs or "potato masher" electronic flashes. A couple of them limped, wore floppy brim hats, and chewed on cigar stubs.

I was the youngest guy at age 21 and I shot with a Leica M2R and a Nikon F loaded with Tri-X push processed to ASA 1200 a lot of the time. To my back some of the old guys called me the "prima donna." I suppose I was. I was just out of the University of Maine journalism program, had the fancy new gear, and thought I knew it all. It was like working in an old, black and white movie. Amazing to think back on it.

Paul-
there are several collections of photographer interviews around these days. Brooks Jensen publishes audio interviews on CD/DVD as part of his Lenswork Extended. Many of the interviewed photographers are devoted amateurs, but well known artists like Alan Ross and John Sexton are also there. They're not free, but the cost is fairly reasonable, especially if you go for one of the 'end of the year' bargain packages. They generally delve into artistic philosophy at least as much as darkroom or image editing practices.
Another source is Michael Reichmann's Luminous Landscape video series. These are video interviews originally on DVD, though in future they'll only be downloads. The interview with Clyde Butcher demonstrates how he makes his huge gelatin silver darkroom prints. Reichmann also interviewed Ctein, and the video is fascinating because it shows precisely how a dye transfer print is made, from start to finish. The complexity of the process is mind-boggling. Made me tired just watching it.

I took a course at UCLA with the late Leigh Weiner in the mid-80's. He was himself quite a character. One story that he told us was his experience growing up in NYC and having Weegee come over for Sunday dinner. While his mother was in the kitchen Weegee would pull out his latest selection of prints and line them up on the couch asking him what he thought saying, "You're mother's always going to say they're nice but, what do you think kid?" Can you imagine? Being exposed to corpses and whatnot at 10-years old? Probably explains a few things about Leigh himself. Of course, having a parent that would describe such photos as nice would probably explain as much.